BONE TOOL MANUFACTURING KIT

Excavated at Windy Wheat Hamlet (5MT4644) in 1979 during the Dolores Archaeological Program, this oblong pot from around 800 AD was found associated with unmodified bones, shaped bones, and stone tools for shaping them.

About 15 to 20 people lived at Windy Wheat Hamlet between AD 750 to AD 820 during the Pueblo I period. Its three pit structures (partly-underground houses) were occupied at different times. The tool kit came from a room with a hearth and storage pits, dated to the final period of occupation.

A specialist toolmaker probably owned this kit. Ancestral Puebloans made awls, needles, scrapers, jewelry, and game pieces from the long bones of deer, sheep and turkeys (and occasionally other animals).

CONTEXT is everything!

The tool kit was found in situ, inside a stone-lined pit. In situ means it was found in the same spot where the maker left it hundreds of years ago.

Finding artifacts in situ is very important for archaeologists. If we found these items scattered on the surface and out of context, we would have never known that all the pieces went together to form a kit.